Keeping a premature and severely brain damaged baby alive on a ventilator would be "pointless and possibly inhumane", a High Court was told yesterday.

Doctors won the legal right last October not to resuscitate 17-month-old Charlotte Wyatt after arguing that she was brain damaged and "had no feeling other than continuing pain".

After a two-day hearing in Cardiff, during which the court heard new evidence that the baby can now see, hear and smile, Mr Justice Hedley reserved his judgment.

Now Charlotte's parents - Darren, aged 33, and Debbie Wyatt, aged 23, originally from Birmingham but now living in Buckland, Portsmouth - must wait until April 21 to hear if he will lift the ruling.

Charlotte measured only five inches when she was born three months premature at St Mary's Hospital, Portsmouth, in October 2003 and has serious brain, lung and kidney damage.

A paediatrician, known in court only as Dr C, said that 17- month- old Charlotte's chances of survival on a ventilator were "very small".

She said: "I think that the combination of all her problems will render that ( ventilation) not in her interests and an invasive and probably useless activity.

"In my view it would be a pointless and possibly inhumane thing to do."

She added: "There has been no brain growth which is a clear marker of very profound impairment."

She admitted that Charlotte had made "very little developmental achievement" but said: "Her potential is bounded. There is a degree of latitude for example as she does begin to smile a bit more, but ultimately it is bounded.

Later, Mr Wyatt told the court that his daughter was a baby crying out for love and affection.

"From my own knowledge and the time I have spent with Charlotte, then I have plenty of evidence of how she is beginning to get better. The more stimulation she gets and the more love we give her, the more she smiles. I can see her making progress."

He said that he and his wife "believed that she (Charlotte) is making good progress".

A specialist inistin neuro-disability, known as Dr H had earlier told the court that the chances of improvement in Charlotte's condition were "not all that good", but he said "you can't rule it out".

However, in his report to the court he said that currently the baby's "quality of life is pretty awful".

Charlotte's guardian, who cannot be named due an order from the court to protect her identity, said she had seen improvements in the baby's condition.

"I did notice some differences, her head was moving about, she appeared to smile and she startled at a loud noise." But she said that Charlotte had the right, "to an end, if it comes, that is appropriate.

"What is right for her, I feel, is that if the end is to come the end is with her family and not in a place she doesn't know. She has a right to have an appropriate end, it's not just her parents' right."

During the closing speech by David Wolfe, acting for the family, Mr Wyatt jumped up and began shouting. He then stormed out of the courtroom.